


Nightmares + 2 Truths

by spectacularparker



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Crushes, Dreaming, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, First Kiss, First Love, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, MCU Peter Parker, Night Terrors, Nightmares, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Peter Parker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-01 18:52:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19183657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spectacularparker/pseuds/spectacularparker
Summary: Your mouth agape, gaze moving from Peter’s chest to his suit and back to him, “You think you can get naked in my room?”“I’ m—I— I’m not naked. I have boxers on,” Peter stumbled over his feet while he pulled on a pair of grey sweats, rolling the band down just enough to have it sit on his hips perfectly. “And now sweats, that’s not being naked. I’m clothed right now.”





	Nightmares + 2 Truths

**Author's Note:**

> This is an extra scene for my story called [Hollow Phoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18980038/chapters/45067354), but it can totally be read by itself.

You were sprawled out on your bed, a pillow tucked underneath your chin with one of your favorite blankets thrown over your body in a makeshift cocoon. A bowl of popcorn sat to the left side of your laptop while Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban filled your room. Saturday nights were meant for you to be sneaking out, meeting your friends, and coming back before your dad and Pepper could even realize you were gone. At least that’s what they used meant anyways.

Somewhere between the fight in Germany, the Avengers breaking apart, your dad away on a mission that he refused to tell you about until he left earlier in the morning. Mixed with Peter getting his butt handed him to by the “Vulture,” you cleaning him up in the process and swallowing the small amount of pride you had left in your feelings about him after that night made your head hurt.

And all of it had left a sour taste in your mouth.

That night was exactly three weeks ago.

You did your best to avoid Peter at school. It was just hard when he sat beside you in English and chemistry, and being lab partners meant Peter was constantly leaning over into your space. At lunch, he always made it his mission to sit beside you, stealing some of the corn chips you had packed. Peter’s arm brushing against yours, fingers lingering too closely when he went to hand you something and his stupid smile he would give you when you said something in order to shut Flash up.

The way Peter took your Great Gatsby book out of your hands when you weren’t paying attention to him for more than three seconds in the library or when the both of you were on your way to the tower for the “Stark Internship.” Pepper and Tony still dropping hints about your liking the “spiderling” and it did not matter how many times you tried to played it off, your dad always gave you the look of ‘I know he was in the house.’ Which was enough to make all the blood rush to your face in a split second before you huffed off to your room. Both of them pretending not to know how deep inside your feels you were for Peter Parker.

It didn’t help on how certain you were Peter could hear your heart beat faster and faster the closer he got to you. Lean over just enough to listen to the thump-thump of your heart racing in your chest to taking your pencil in the middle of pre-calculus in order to make it climb up into your ears. Almost like all of this was a game during the day at school to Peter. See how close he can get before you turn into mush and putty in his hands.

“Stupid spider sense,” you muttered into your pillow as you went to turn the volume up some more to block out the rain pelting against the window.

Peter made it hard for you to keep your emotions in check. You were good at keeping people at arm’s length, and some of it was how you watched your dad do it for so many years until Pepper. Minus the one time in middle school when you went to kiss Evan Jenkins outside of the seventh-grade dance and your dad threw a fit and became slightly overprotective. It made pretending not to be interested in anyone so much easier. Minus when the emotions would hit you like a freaking semi truck and backed up into you a handful of times before they left.

Which is what was happening to you right now with Peter Parker.

**_Why couldn’t Peter be normal?_ **

**_Why couldn’t you be normal?_ **

**_Why did your dad have to go on another sketchy mission?_ **

**_Wait…did Peter go on sketchy mission?_ **

Your stomach churned, and mouth went dry when the last question ran through your mind. There was no doubt Peter probably had more sketchy mission than Tony ever did in short about of time he was Spider-Man. Fighting minor crime, dealing with gang members, and aliens it was enough to send a cold chill running down your spine as you buried your head into your pillow, blocking all the thoughts wanting to run wild.

_“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”_

Was the last thing you heard before you drifted off to sleep.

_You sat in front of the television with your legs tucked underneath you, Great Gatsby opened to page forty-six and your notebook beside you as your scribbled notes down about the scene the best you could. Sounds of the latest news and Pepper talking on the phone with some lawyer filled the living room of your dad’s Manhattan penthouse. A somewhat typical school minus your dad upstate working on some new suit or something with S.H.E.I.LD. Details were kept at the bare minimum for you until you reached eighteen and then it would become information overload. Only when the screen went black did you look up, your eyebrows threading together as static filled the screen before a group of terrorist showed up._

_You sat up on your knees, leaning against the coffee table with your gaze glued to the movements of each person walking in and out of the frame. In the middle sat a slender person in the middle of them, a bandage covering the majority of their chest and a makeshift old potato bag over their head. Your heart made its way up to your throat, and your ears felt like someone had stuffed cotton in them as Pepper started to talk to you. Your palms sweaty, dropping your pencil in the floor and rolling towards the television. You knew whose face was underneath the bag._

_It was the same exact image sketched into your mind from when you were eight. A memory on repeat over and over again when anything liked this happened. The second they lifted the bag off the person’s head, you knew you would see your dad’s face battered, bloody, and bruised. A face in sheer panic and one you would be able to translate over again as someone who was fixing to lose their life at the hands of evil. In an instant, it was as if your whole world would come crashing back down around you for the second time in your life._

_You knew every movement of these men, and in precisely seven seconds, your dad’s face would show. With their demands of money would need to be met in order to bring him back._

_“Pepper,” you managed to squeak out with your body half-way across the table now._

_Pepper’s phone landed on the couch with a soft thud. “Oh, no, no, no, no.”_

_Your eyes went wide the second they ripped the bag off the person’s face, and it wasn’t your dad. Your heart stopped as you stared at a dazed and confused Peter Parker._

You shot up knocking the blanket off you and your hair falling into to your face while gasped for air. The bowl of popcorn scattered to the floor and underneath your bed. Your heart raced a million miles per second, ears ringing and tears rolling down your cheeks while you brought your knees to your chest to calm yourself down.

When had you allowed yourself to become so attached to Peter?

Exactly three weeks ago when you told yourself not to get attached again for the third time. The same night Peter mentioned he had a building crash down on him and came to you cleaned his wounds. And after the events in Germany when you made fun of him for getting his butt handed to him by Steve Rogers. The way Peter would come into school in the morning limping just enough for you to know something bad happened the night before, but no one else really ever noticed. How he was out there fighting crime with sketchy missions without your dad and sometimes with your dad. Being a superhero meant being battered and bruised and getting beaten up at the near sight of things.

It didn’t help at all in the way you promised Peter to stay safe and not die on you. The single promise allowed your mind to play the second worse nightmare it could, right behind losing your dad was losing Peter Parker.

You buried your head into your pillow to soften the sobs rattling throughout your body. You weren’t in the mood for Pepper to come rushing into your room and question why you were a sobbing mess at eleven o’clock at night. And really, the last thing you needed was for her to tell Tony, and for him come sneaking into your room with chocolate milk and chocolate cookies at four-thirty in the morning.  

You wanted to scream.

You need to scream.

Anything to get the nightmare out of your mind.

Soft taps came from your window mixed with the rain. You lifted your head a little to see Peter sticking to your window like a drowned rat in his suit. Rain coming down all around him while he motioned for you to let him. Thunder rattling the sky and lightning, giving you a perfect view of New York City’s skyline in the middle of the night.

_**Why was he here?** _

“Let me in,” he said, pointing to the window, “I swear I’m not hurt this time, but it’s just—cold.”

_**Ah, there it was.** _

You wanted to fall back on your bed, scream into your pillow on how this night was playing out. But as Peter tapped again, you pushed yourself up off your bed. Socked feet met the cold hardwood floor of your bedroom while you padded over to him.

Peter slipped in with ease. His suit and backpack drenched as you stared at him while he tossed his backpack into your computer chair. Almost acting as if Peter owned the place, and maybe there was a part of you that wanted him to. But you just kept staring at, blinking every so often while he pulled out some clothes from inside his backpack.  

More in shock than anything else.

That was the blinking was.

“What are you doing here?”

“I—uh.”

“Peter.”

“Y/N, can I get out of this? It’s sticking to places that aren’t comfortable.” Before you could answer him, Peter pressed the center spider of his suit. You watched the red and blue material pool around his feet and making a slapping sound against his skin in the process.

Your mouth agape, gaze moving from Peter’s chest to his suit and back to him, “You think you can get naked in my room?”

“I’ m—I— I’m not naked. I have boxers on,” Peter stumbled over his feet while he pulled on a pair of grey sweats, rolling the band down just enough to have it sit on his hips perfectly. “And now sweats, that’s not being naked. I’m clothed right now.”

You took a step back, colliding into your dresser, causing your hands to wrap around the edge. Peter Parker was in your room half-naked, drenched wet hair sticking to his forehead, a small scar running across his right collarbone, and a six pack that made Steve Rogers look bad at the moment. All of it was enough to drive you crazy. And there went your emotions flying back out the window.

You straighten your back, gained some composure back, and asked him again, “What are you doing here?”

“I–” he ran a hand through his hair, making it stand up in every direction. If you weren’t so worried about someone walking in, you would have fixed it to where it at least looked halfway decent. “I was patrolling and—”

“Spit it out, Parker.”

“Will you let me?” He jerked his head the side, allowing the muscles in his chest to move just enough to send your heart over the edge. “I was on patrol and in the neighborhood.”

“In the neighborhood?” You asked as Peter shot you a look, making you look down at your feet, pushing the tips of your toes together. “Sorry.”

“And I heard your heartbeat pick up—”

“My heartbeat?”

“Are you going to let me finish?”

“Are you stalking me?”

“What? No?” Peter said, shaking his head while he crossed his arms over his chest and took a step closer to you. “You just have a very distinct heartbeat, that’s all, and I heard it a couple of blocks over, and—-.”

_**A distinct heartbeat.** _

You had a distinct heartbeat.

“And you were stalking me,” you sighed, moving around Peter to sit on your bed.

Peter knew your heartbeat so well in a matter of months. He was, after all, the reason it stayed all over the damn place every single hour of every single day. Never cause of anything else, but cause of this boy with the goofy grin, deep chestnut eyes and hair a total mess. The same boy who was currently looking at you like you had thrown yourself into a ditch on purpose and was trying to recover as if nothing happened.

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” Peter whispered, reaching inside of his backpack for a black t-shirt and slipped it over his head. “I know Tony’s gone, and Pepper was working late, and I don’t know—”

“I’m fine,” you muttered while looking him dead in the eyes. If you showed no emotions, then he could leave, and everything would be normal again. “Nothing’s wrong, no one is hurting me. I was just watching Harry Potter, that’s all.”

“You cry while watching Harry Potter?”

“What? No,” you said, closing your laptop and patted to the spot at the foot of your bed for him to sit down on. If he was here, he might as well make himself comfortable, and the storm outside had started to pick up with the wind howling against your bedroom window.

“Then what was it?” Peter asked. The bed giving away to his body climbing up on it and you rolled a little forwards to him. A little too close to a boy who understood your heartbeat better than you did any math equation.

Your body felt too big for your room; the longer Peter looked at you. Like the room slowly closing in on you, making the bed tiny and the walls squshing against your arms. The air slowly sinking away from the gasp of your lungs and your ears becoming static at the sheer thought of telling Peter you were having nightmares.

Nightmares about things that should have been taken care of years ago once your dad was safe. Ones that had now been replaced with Peter’s face. Some you weren’t sure if you could even handle remembering word for word for the pain they carried with him was like a knife being jabbed into your heart. It was bad enough to remember the day your dad was taken and to see his face on television, not fully understanding the weight it had carried at the time.

But now…now Peter was sitting across from you. Keeping a single promise, you held so closely to heart without realizing it, and your mind took off with the worst-case scenario.

“Hey.” He reached out for your hand, gently undoing it from your death grip against your pillow. Peter’s rough, calloused palm against your soft one, sending a wave of electricity through you, allowing your breathing to pick up a tad. But at the same time, it put you at ease when Peter squeezed your fingers between both of his hands. “You can tell me anything.”

“Two truths.” Your words collided together as you rocked up onto your knees. “One from me and one from you, that’s it.”

A very old game you and Tony use to play when you pretend to not draw on the walls or mess with his stuff in his lab and replace it with legos since the day he came back. You would tell him the truth, and he would tell you the truth about what he was doing that day.

“Y/N,” Peter spoke softly, in a way that allowed your shoulders to relax.  

“Two truths, it’s the only way I’ll tell you,” you whispered as the tips of your fingers tapped the top of his hand. “You have to tell me something that I don’t know about you.”

“Okay,” Peter said with a nod of his head.

Your thoughts ran together like a puzzler refusing to fit together. All the pieces too big for one another, and nothing making sense anymore. Your tongue was heavy in your mouth the longer you sat there, and the sheer thought of telling Peter how much you cared about him made you want to fling yourself off your bed and roll underneath it.

Hiding your feelings had always been easier, but now they were tougher with Peter sitting in front of you. The last thing you needed right now was for things to become awkward between the two of you. Once it happened,  hen it would only be a matter of time before Ned, MJ, Betty, and even Flash would be able to pick up on how you two weren’t the same as before. Slightly attached at the hip, but not enough to really be anything more than friends would come crumbling down around you in the blink of an eye.

But maybe you wanted to be more than friends.

Maybe it was why your chest caved in every time you saw him. Why Peter was starting to seep into your dreams and why you made him make the single promise to you three weeks ago.  

“I’ll go first,” Peter whispered, and your head shot up. He gnawed on the inner corner of his lip, and his fingers still laced with yours as he pulled you slightly closer to him.

_**Oh, no. NO, NO, NO, NO** _

_**NOPE.** _

_**Abort mission.** _

_**Call Pepper.** _

_**Get out of this situation, now.** _

“You never go first, Parker,” you stammer, leaning back a little. You were too close, too close for comfort. You could smell the sweet scent of vanilla from May’s scones and coffee that still lingered on Peter’s lips and breath.

“I figured it might make things a little easier,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders, “I mean—since—whatever happened still has you out of it.”

“Does not.”

“Really?” Peter looked at you with a raised eyebrow and small smirk before giving your hand another squeeze. “That’s why your shaking and your heart’s still racin’ then?”

“I—”

Damn, you Peter, for having good hearing.

“One truth, right?” Peter asked while reaching for your other hand. His palms flat against yours, fingers laced as lightning cracked across the sky. You saw the dark circles resting underneath his eyes and the small cut on the top of his lip.

“Ye–yes,” you stammered.

Your mind raced with every possible way this might and thinking the only reason why Peter was even holding both of your hands was so he could make a clean break and tell you liked someone else without making it hurt more than it already did. MJ. Liz. Taylor. Summer. All the girls Peter showed mild interest in and wasn’t you. That was the current direction your mind was heading towards.

A clean break with no strings attached, and you could go back to be the Stark girl who didn’t show her emotions while being a hopeless romantic.

“You wanna know why I came over so fast?” Peter asked.

You swore for a quick second you saw some kind of glimmer in his eyes. The kind people get when they’re falling in love. The same glimmer your dad gave Pepper on a good day (and even a bad day), but the one you know he is was so deeply madly in love with her just by that look. You knew everything your dad saw in Pepper with that single glimmer.

“Cause you thought I was dying,” you said with a forced laugh and a shrug of your shoulders.

Peter smirked, tips of his fingers against your knuckles. And as much as you wanted to control your heart from beating in your ears, it wasn’t in your favor at all. “If I thought you were dying, I woulda broken through your window.”

“I like that window.”

“It is a nice window,” Peter said with a glance over his shoulder and then back to you. “But—when I heard your heartbeat pick up three blocks over, I–” Peter’s gaze moved to your fingers interlocked with his, and you tilted your head a little at the way his cheeks were starting to a light shade crimson against the dim light of your bedroom. “I thought you were in trouble.”

“So, you did think I was dying?” You said as your lips curled up into a small smile.

“No, I mean—maybe, but I would’ve been able to notice, I just—I got here, and you were sitting on your bed crying—and I don’t know, I just know that I couldn’t let you be alone.”

“Why?” You asked while leaning back a little. “I’m use to being alone.”

Peter’s gaze locked with yours. The glimmer replaced with worry now behind every golden spec of his eyes. You knew this look far too well. Pepper gave it to you often when you would be up in the middle night while Tony was away, working on something or homework. Really anything to keep your mind away sleep and the nightmares that followed you sometimes. Old shadows wanting to play at random times.

“That’s the thing.” Peter rolled his neck around in a tiny circle, avoiding eye contact with you. “I kinda—like you and I was afraid you wouldn’t let me in if I just swung in and stayed in my suit and—”

“You had this pre-planned?”

“No, I-” Peter tossed his head back, and for once you swore, you heard his heartbeat racing in his chest faster than yours did right now.

“Peter.” Your mouth was dry, but it didn’t stop you from trying to swallow, and you pulled away from Peter a little bit. “The nightmare was about you.”

“Oh—oh,” Peter’s eyes were wide, eyebrows pushed together, and you were only inches away from him now. “Me?”

“Remember when I made you promise to stay safe and not die on me?” You asked, watching as Peter nodded his head and your palms became sweaty against his. “That’s cause I was starting to really like you. Only I ignored it.”

“Ignored it?”

“Yeah, like pushed it out of my mind, but now my brain has somehow lumped you in the same category with my dad of being if you die, I can’t handle that happening.”

“I’m supposed to ignore the fact that you’re afraid I’m going to die,” Peter said in a way that made your stomach twist up into knots.

Oh, you knew this was a bad idea to even tell him that you were starting to have nightmares about him in the same way you did after you dad was kidnapped made you want to get sick. It would be easier than sitting here with Peter, in possibly one of the most awkward nights of your life.

“No, cause it’s true.” You rocked back onto your butt, accidentally pulling Peter closer to you in the process. “I just—the people I like tend to be pretty high on my radar of not wanting them to die.”

“So, you like me too?”

“Peter…”

“Well, your fingers are still a laced with mine and your like inches away from my face, and you don’t want me to—”

Your lips pressed against Peter’s, slightly missing his lips as you moved to meet them again perfectly. Your whole world engulfed in the sweet scent of vanilla from May’s scones and coffee as your lips glided over his. Soft lips against his rough, chapped ones. Your heart racing in your chest and up into your ears, and with a slight jerk of his hand, you were pulled closer to him. Bodies so close, the heat from Peter started to sink into your skin. But as you leaned in ever close to him, you and Peter both rolled off the bed with a loud thud. Your body on top of his, hands above Peter’s heads, legs tangled with each other, and your face in the crook of his neck, trying to contain the laughter coming from you.

“That went a lot smoother in my head,” your lips brushed against Peter’s neck, and he unlaced his fingers to wrap you up in his arms. Safe, warm, and alive. That was what Peter Parker currently was to you in the middle of your bedroom floor.

“I don’t know this seems pretty smooth to me,” Peter said, his breath hot against your ear. You smacked Peter across the shoulder and buried your head deeper into his neck while one of his hands ran up and down your back.

“Y/N,” Pepper called out, “are you okay?”

“Yeah,” you said, lifting your head, “I just stubbed my toe.”

“You can’t keep using that as an excuse.”

“You can’t keep showing up at my window every night,” you quipped back while climbing off on top of him and reached for his hand to help him up. “It’s getting annoying, you know.”

Peter climbed up beside you, moving your laptop back to the foot of your bed before he placed an arm around you and held you tightly to him. “So, you want a phone call now?”

“A text would be nice,” you added while straining your neck to look at him better.

“I think I can do that,” Peter’s lips pressed a gentle kiss on your forehead.

You curled up beside him, tucking your leg underneath his knee and your hand resting on his stomach. His fingers left a ghost-like touch across your arm, and you found yourself falling asleep without even trying. For the simple fact of everything you wanted and needed was right here in your room with a single promise and one nightmare.


End file.
